Happiness & Presence
I've been thinking a lot about the meaning of happiness lately...I've been looking to define it for myself... what is it for me...and what is it for those around me who I love and especially for my kids in who I am for them. I once thought that if I could be enough and give them enough they would be happy. I am coming to see that all my kids long for from me is my presence and a healthy contented home....this to them is happiness.
As a society we have somehow come to assess happiness as a thing or experience measured against what happiness isn't. We seem to unconsciously make this assessment for ourselves and then we focus on those things/experiences/relationships that we equate with our unhappiness and believe that if these could be gone then we would suddenly be happy or have happiness as a permanent state.
My first child...I had no expectation of sleep or no sleep. It just was. I had no expectation of myself in his first year other than to be his mum. I was completely fulfilled with this role. If he was happy - regardless of not sleeping through the night - I was happy. And to manage my own tiredness I slept with him in the day. It was a simple and instinctive solution. There was nothing I felt a need to resist or struggle against. There was no source of unhappiness to remove. I loved the experience of being a mum with all my heart and felt immensely fulfilled and consequently happy.
Then I had my second child and I was studying. Suddenly her lack of sleeping on her own was associated with my lack of ability to study and 'achieve'. I became frustrated and unhappy with the lack of consecutive minutes in which to focus and study and I searched desperately for a sleep solution. In actual fact she slept more than my first child...and her sleep was very normal for a breastfed baby but I was unhappy with my inability to study and in turn I was unhappy with my inability to be the mum I wanted to be. Reality didn't meet my expectations and I felt I was failing on all fronts....happiness eluded me.
If there was no pebble in your shoe you wouldn't be inclined to do what you needed to remove it to enable you to move forward and to keep growing...but somehow we have turned these pebbles into boulders through our belief that we need to be more than what we are right now to be happy.
We are wired to fight and be driven yes...but somehow I think we have reframed what would be our instinctive drive to survive by finding food and shelter and love, into keeping the financial wolves from the door as we live outside of our means and by an expectation to be better and have more...as we await our arrival at this 'thing' or 'place' that we belief to be a constant state called happiness.
In doing this we seem to have lost the enjoyment in the simple things but also we have lost sight of what matters most - connection to those we love. From connection come fulfilment and a sense of a life bigger than our own. When we die all our personal achievements will not sit beside us. It will be our children and the ones we love if we are lucky enough. And it will be the joy of being privileged enough to watch those we love grow into themselves....and its not just when we are dying it's also at the end of any day...its the ones we love and who love us.
Get lost in your baby's gaze as they feed and look at you like you are their universe...rug up with your baby in the sling and going for a walk at dusk with the co-creator and person you love and a full moon on the rise, have conversations at dinner time instead of letting the tv fill the space and don't be afraid of hard conversations or silence, value being home to eat as a family, brew your tea in a pot and allow the time to wait for it to steep, learn an instrument and play songs for and with those you love even if they are far from perfect, take time to dry between your toes....in these moments you will find happiness in your heart and create memories of joy for years to come. It's now and now and now. So simple yet one of the hardest things to give into.
